Received Monday, November 10, 2014

haha I love the idea of sending the 31 spoons. I read it out to my companion. hopefully christopher can fully live it up on his 31st b-day.

G-man's got a good missionary story, good getting people to read the scriptures, thats always good. also super good inviting your friends to all the church stuff for beebee. that is like exactly what the 1st presidency talks about all the time. cant wait to see chase's no shave picture, recieve a package.

while on the topic of packages, i sent one on like last wednesday I think of the SD card from the camera and some bottle caps, hopefully you will get that this next week.

I hardly even remember my first campout either, thats crazy g-man just went on his. and dont worry his playing with fire skills will get much better.

How did your haircut turn out?

it went well, the guy cut it in a really cool interesting way. he had like 5 different razors lined up that he would switch between as he was cutting. also he cut it finger-width just by sight, it was crazy and he did a good job with it.

 

From last week's letter:

Have you done your grocery shopping today? Buy anything different, interesting, exciting?

3 glasses of island soda, next week i will get a kinder surprise egg (those chocolate eggs with a toy inside, remember those?)

What is a "GLASS of Island soda"? How do you get a glass of something at the grocery story. Tell that please. AND I do not remember the Kinder eggs! Did you eat/get them as a child? Did you get one today? What was the toy? Please speak about that!

think of the "glass of island soda" like a glass beer bottle glass like that. they are sweet and cost about 70 cents and taste really good. I remember somehow eating kinder surprise eggs when i was little, maybe just a prophesy of the future from a dream or something. but yes I have a faint memory of biting into chocolate eggs and finding toys inside. i believe that they used to be legal in the states for a while then they made them illegal because people would get a little overzealous and eat the toy too and choke. I got one today, it was a little porche car. From the contents of the kinder egg I prophesy that I will stay in the area of fast cars in toronto.

 

Did you get snow again this week?

not really, just super cold rain several times.

Did you stay warm?

I did with the beautiful large jacket I have, as well as a smaller jacket i bought.

 

Are you thinking of getting a warmer coat at the thrift shop?

so far no, all seems pretty good.

 

I assume everything turned out fine with your health insurance and SS# issue?

yup, it was just funny to have one of the front office older missionary ladies call me and tell me they were just talking to my mom.

 

During the Sunday School hour, where do you go; which class?

last sunday was a weird/crazy sunday. we went tour our sacrament meeting and neither of the 2 people who were supposed to come showed up, then we actually went to the YSA ward with 2 other investigators who wanted to go to church but are YSA age and wanted to decide which to go to that one or the family ward. kind of a weird situation, in the middle of being passed off to YSA or not.

 

Griffin is right now eating a twinkie. Do you like twinkies? (I got them for his campout. Dad asked specifically.)

Twinkies are ok, the chocolate hostess things are much better though.

 

Have you had any interesting conversations this week?

we found this Nigerian guy named Collin who was baptized in Italy in 1987, sadly has not been to church in canada in 19 years. he was very excited to find out there was a church here. since his baptism has been married the last 10 years and has 5 kids now. he is super cool, he didnt have any time when we met him but he talked for a little and we are calling him tomorrow to set up an appointment.

 

Any good bus rides? Do you have a bus pass, or do you have to pay with cash every time you ride?

we have bus passes, normally we dont really ride on the bus much longer than about 5 minutes though to get to other places.

 

Any good food stories this week?

an awesome filipino lady made tons and tons of food for us to just take home which was awesome. Fried rice, spaghetti, red sauce, samosas (super good, look them up). and lots of bread, it was great.

 

Anything funny happen between you and your companion?

lots of funny ones but for some reason I cant really remember much, a quick one was the other night though. elder burton doesnt like deep doctrine, but one night i was reading a little in abraham (about kolob) and telling him about what i read and it made him go crazy (in a funny way). hmmm not that funny in writing... moving on.

 

How are your investigators?

Muhammad is still learning slowly he can only meet once a week, but still learning. Tammy is too scared to quit smoking, lame, she keeps missing her appointments. really excited about collin's family though, they should be sweet.

 

I cannot remember, did you go to your mission with good, warm, winter boots? If yes, have you worn them? If no, do you think you will get some?

yes I came with them, and they should be very good. I have not worn them yet, I'm waiting until it really snows. before i left i had 1 pair of church shoes that i had for a long time and 1 new pair. that old pair of shoes were a pair that i took from chase right after he left on his mission. sadly they finally broke (sole came lose from the shoe), i will go to value village today to find another pair.

alright thats about it, i love you all!
Quinn

Received Monday, November 3, 2014

Crazy stories. Obviously there is some sort of stroke virus going around, maybe it has something to do with this weird ebola thing i keep hearing about. glad sister card is doing fine though.

 Any extra candy you have from halloween that shouldnt be eaten can always be sent to me as well, it will be disposed of at rapid speed. 

good feet stories too, sadly they go by the metric system here so i dont got too many of those.

Happy birthday to Christopher next sunday! hopefully he gets the gift of the redskins (i think thats his favourite team) not stinking it up that day.

sweet about zak and the new keys, i'm glad hes taking good care of my car while i'm away (just kidding). 

And I always love awkward stories and random people saying weird awkward things.

Questions:

how did the time change work for you, how did you remember to change your clocks??

the zone leaders sent out a text to everyone letting us know, it was a good thing too because we would have had no idea. we heard nothing from the ward about it.

 

How was your Halloween?

uneventful, not much happened. just a regular day then we went in at 6 and did our weekly planning.

 

suggestions for conversation starters: ask people if they have heard of 1D, or 5sos; then ask what their favorite song is. That will get a good conversation started. Then you can talk about The Killers and mention that the lead singer, Brandon Flowers is a Mormon, do you know what that is?? (Your welcome).

I will try that, the only thing is that i have never heard of this weird 5sos thing. i will have to be wary with who i am talking to as well, it might be a little weird when an old chinese woman has no idea who the killers are. I will report next week.

 

do you do much visiting of less active ward members? I went to the early morning church meeting again today and was so impressed by all the visiting that our sisters do.

do you mean like during church or during the week. we normally visit a couple during the week, and during/before we normally try to talk to all the recent converts and returning less active people.

 

By my calculations, you usually email around 3:00 your time. By then you have to have finished your sports for the day. Is that true? If yes, what exactly did you play today? Do you walk to the church in your missionary clothes, change there and change back (all sweaty) into your missionary clothes?

I am pretty sure I normally send my email around 1. I have been finishing a little later the past couple weeks because i have just been getting distracted. I have also heard that sometimes when you send emails from myldsmail it takes a long time to get to where it is sent every once and a while. so no sports done yet today, just the same regular thing, i will get my haircut today though. i am going to go with a 5 on the sides and finger width on top. but yes when we do sports we change at the building, all sweaty.

 

Have you done your grocery shopping today? Buy anything different, interesting, exciting?

3 glasses of island soda, next week i will get a kinder surprise egg (those chocolate eggs with a toy inside, remember those?)

Do you have a dinner appt tonight?

nope :(

 

what did you eat for breakfast this morning?

cereal

 

did you bear your testimony yesterday in church?

nope, i try not to as a missionary, 2 sister missionaries did though.

 

do you stand by the back door and great the people as they walk in?

if by great you mean complement them on how great they are then yes. normally we do, this building only has 1 main entrance so we get to see everyone.

 

Any great stories from you this week?

it snowed! it was pretty cold this week, the day it snowed it got down to 2º (about 36ºF) i broke out my huge coat, its a little over poofy but kept me very warm, it was nice.

 

how are Tammy and Mohammad doing?

Tammy is being lame and keeps pushing back when we meet, but we should be good to meet tonight. We met with mohammad last saturday and he actually basically set his own consistent appointment for every saturday, so he is pretty sweet.

i love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, October 27, 2014

I did hear about that shooting, and you are correct that it did happen in Ontario. The only thing is that Toronto is in Ontario as well. The shooting was in Ottawa which is the capital of Ontario (or all of canada I cant remember). but yea that is pretty far away, Ottawa actually is one of the few parts of ontario not in our mission. I'm not actually sure which mission it is, it possibly might be part of the Quebec, Montreal mission.

Wow I wish our ward had a halloween party, i love chili. Luckily here I've learned about a whole ton of other things that are better though, like roti, and shawarma pizza.

Excited to see what G-man's rex kwon do outfit. Also I thought his pushup story was very funny, read that one to my companion.

Wheelchair basketball is something I have actually wanted to try for a while so that sounds super fun. 

wow its lucky i wasnt playing in that football game or I wouldve scored all my teams touchdowns.

You have never before talked about a new area that was created. You mentioned that in your last letter. So, does your WARD have 2 area's in it now?? That seems like it must be a large map area for one ward! So, will you have 2 sets of elder's going to the same ward?

So our ward covers the entire downtown section of ontario, which is tons of people. So before there were actually 2 sets of missionaries, now there are 3 sets, Toronto North (sisters), Toronto South (us), Toronto East (New sisters).

 

If missionaries don't come and play sports for p-day, what do you think they do for fun that day?

really not sure, probably eat, sleep, or shop. dont worry i make fun of missionaries that do that.

 

Do you have a favorite outfit you like to wear? or a favorite tie?

yes, i love my white shirt, slacks, and tie! oh and my name badge too, that one is sweet. I actually do have a favorite tie though, well its kind of a tie between the ties (pun entirely intended) I love my turqoise one but the orange polkadot fish one you gave me for my birthday is awesome too though. I would like the orange one better except that the tie material is not as nice, it is more thin and wrinkles really easy where i tie the knot.

 

Do you study the PMG every day? Do you just read different parts, or do you start at the first, go to the last?

I try to read from it every day, sometimes I forget though. Normally for personal study, the first half hour I study from PMG/scriptures specifically things that I will be going over that day, then the next 15 minutes i read from the bible then the next 15 i read from the BoM

 

Do you always do Companion Study? How do you decide what to study together?

yes companion study is every day. normally we study a little about what we are doing that day as well.

 

Do you find it is getting easier to start conversations with people? Is it easier to bring up the gospel? I think having that badge is a GREAT advantage! Hmm, maybe I should get a shirt that says "ask me about my 5th son".....that could be my "badge".

It is pretty easy on the street, the only thing i have a problem with is talking to people on the buses and the subway. that one is a little awkward when someone isnt interested at all and you end up sitting right next to them the rest of the trip.

 

Did you have any rain last week? Are you prepared for rain? Meaning do you have something to protect your suit? If you don't I think your suit will stink if it gets wet.

it did rain last week, it rains like every week its crazy. I don't have anything to protect my suit except a broken umbrella, but i almost never go anywhere in my suit for very long so its not that bad. i do have a good rain jacket too that would fit over my suit.

 

When is your next zone conference?

I think next transfer so at least like 4 or 5 weeks.

How often do you meet as a district?

every week that we dont have a zone meeting, so most weeks.

What time are you supposed to be in your apartment at night? Have you ever been late? Do you text or call someone and tell them you are in?

we are supposed to be there at 9 or we can get back at 9:30 if we have a lesson. but yea i have been late before, we have to call our district leaders if we are late.

 

Are you happy with the number of socks you have?

yes I'm all good. In my last apartment the last missionary left a bunch that he didnt need so i took those too. so I have plenty.

 

Are you happy with your ties?

Yes they are great, thank you.

 

What was your best meal from last week?

On saturday a member took us to this restaurant called Swiss chalet. they are all over in canada. they are famous for their chicken, it was great.

 

Do you and your companion both set your alarms? Maybe you only need one to go off, then you both wake up.

yes we both set our alarms to help us wake up and then remind us to wake up.

 

Anything on your Christmas Wish List? Start thinking!

wow, ok i need to start thinking actually, ask me again later.

 

Playing sports as usual today?

of course! always

 

Meet any new people last week?

yes, we met this guy named muhammad who is from some place by kenya, hes pretty sweet. he was busy but he was excited to have us back. and we are helping a lady named tammy quit smoking.

 

Anyone come to church?

nope we had stake conference which is far away so no one wanted to come :(

 

Do you and your companion always sing the songs at church?

yes

alright thats it, i love you all!

Quinn

Received Monday, October 20, 2014

are your bed bug bites lessening?

Yes, All should be good from now on.

 

Our Ward Halloween party is this Saturday. Will your ward have a Halloween party?? Have you heard much about trick or treating?

Our ward is not having a halloween party! I didnt even think about that, thats sad/kinda lame. I think halloween is a real holiday though. On halloween we need to go inside back to our apartments at 6!

 

anyone give you free food this week?

tons and tons, it is great. we are loaded with food right now, it is awesome. I havent had to cook anything for about 2 weeks. just tons and tons of leftovers and meals. lots of turkey, also a filipino lady gave us tons of fried rice (not as good as yours, no meat but still good.)

 

Talk about FB and your mission. Are you allowed to do missionary on your FB? Is that talked about? Are only certain missionaries allowed to do that kind of missionary work?

well I dont really have an ipad yet so I have no idea. I dont think we will get any sort of information like that until we get our ipads, i dont know. but I am pretty sure any missionary can use it. an elder I am emailing from my MTC district in oregon has ipads and he does facebook stuff all the time.

 

Have you heard anything about you getting an ipad? Daniel (your cousin) leaves for his actual mission; I think VA; he is definitely getting an ipad.

Nope heard nothing. oh man that is sweet for daniel, when does he leave again? I forgot to say that there is a portuguese speaking missionary here who is in the ward or stake named Elder Langren. its pretty cool he knows the whole hansen family.

 

Do you come home at night and record in your area book the visits that you make? Our sister missionaries use their tablet for that. It seems so nice and easy.  

we should and that is what usually happens but we forget sometimes. we will do that after we get back and plan.

 

What sports did you play last week, what are you playing this week for p-day?

basketball and soccer, kinda lame though, not many people showed up.

 

Any talk about you moving apartments?

nope we will not move apartments, I think i said that last week. that new apartment was going to the new area they made in the ward.

 

where do you do your emailing?

the church or the library, normally the church

 

How was church on Sunday? Any investigators come?

good, the bishop's son is leaving on his mission to spain this next sunday so he gave a good farewell. we were supposed to have a couple at church but they couldnt make it for lame reasons :(

 

How often do you wear your retainer?

uh oh, hmmmm probably about once a week. I will try to do better.

alright thats about it,

I love you all

Quinn

Received Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Good to know that Forte at least is still awesome. apparently there is a guy in the spanish ward here who gets real sports jerseys for super cheap (like 20$), not sure how he gets them though, i've chosen not to look a gift horse in the mouth. So I might see if i can get a Forte jersey.

glad your facebooking is going well also dad. On this side of canada there is no fry sauce to speak of, but it wouldnt surprise me too much if there was fry sauce in Alberta.

funny story about G-Man too, if thats what he likes then go for it, i bet griffin got a bunch of little slaps on his stomach because he was shirtless though.

also some cool stuff about kylie, so i expect her to be president by the time I get back.

Is the movie playing close by your?

are you allowed to see it?

Could you bring investigators to it?

The only thing I've seen/heard about this movie is from me going on Mormon.org on preparation day. a sister from alberta told me yesterday also that her ward back home had a big showing about it. but really I know nothing about it, so i'm guessing neither me nor any of my investigators will be seeing it any time soon. I'm glad it was good though.

apparently Monday was Canada's Thanksgiving. Did you celebrate at a member's home?

no but a the relief society president (who is tongan) had all the missionaries in the ward over to the church and she and some other people cooked up a ton of food, it was pretty awesome

If yes, what did you eat? 

turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, shishkabobs (filipino woman made those), gravy, other delicious thanksgiving type stuff.

Did seem like the same sort of holiday as it does in America?

very very similar, it seems like most people got their celebration traditions straight from America.

did you ask anyone what Thanksgiving means for the Canadians? (No pilgrims and the Indians, I suppose).

yes, response: "I really dont know" apparently it really isnt that big of a deal to Canadians. 1 Sister from Alberta told us that no one back home ever really even celebrates it. so basically no one really knows, canada just likes holidays. the funny thing is that it seemed like the Americans were the ones who really celebrated it the most here.

Did you have other appts that day?

1 but he canceled. it was this one guy who just came to church and told us he would like to be baptized and apparently he was taught by missionaries before us but those missionaries made no teaching record of him. we were going to meet him that day but then he told us that he realized he had work that day. He was a little crazy but I've seen much worse, really hes pretty awesome.

When did you find out that Canadian Thanksgiving was Monday?

the zone leaders texted us on thursday and told us preparation day was changed to tuesday because of thanksgiving.

Do boys go out and play flag football?

i saw 1 family out playing football but aside from that, no. that family is American I'm guessing. no turkey bowl in this ward or anything.

Last week you were going to look at the thrift store; did you? did you find anything good?

we did not make it to the thrift store that day, we will get there eventually, i dont know.

have you asked anyone to help you with your GPS yet?

i keep forgetting, I will get to it eventually. I wont really need it until I get to a car area again and that is at least 5 weeks away. also we (the zone) met with President on friday and he said that he is going to intentionally try to keep people in the same place for a longer time so they can get to know and work with the ward better.

have you had your bed bugs sprayed again?

we did, and we think/hope they are all gone. it normally takes a couple days for them to really show up and start itching, and I already have a bunch of bites all over me so its hard to tell, I will know in a week or 2. (what a pain to pack up and move all your stuff...)

Anything exciting or different happening today, or this week?

This last week I decided to start learning a specific phrase in every language. I currently know how to say I am handsome in 8 different languages. English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Japanese, Turkish, and Cantonese.

Have you had rain this week?

yup, it rains pretty much every week. also this week has been cold. sadly the time for short sleeves is over (did I say that exact thing last week?). I wore a sweater every day last week except for today its pretty warm actually, so just long sleeve shirt.

eat at Tim Horton's this week?

nope, a woman early in the week gave us a ton of turkey and mashed potatoes and home-made mac n' cheese so we have been eating a lot of it.

Alright thats it,

I love you all!

Quinn

Received Monday, October 6, 2014

Good football update, i am pretty sure that 180 is the most points that have been scored. how are the bears doing this year so far? dominating as usual i assume.

Thought that was a very funny story with the steak, good find mom!

And also transfers just happened last night, elder Burton and I are still here.

ok questions:

What happened with the bed bugs? Did you have them? are you being bit? What happened?

Yes, we definitely had them, we actually caught a bunch and put them in a bag and taped it to the wall. The apartment people got a company guy to come and spray the apartment with pesticides. we had to bag up everything we didnt want directly sprayed (clothes, dishes, etc.) and move everything at least 3 feet from the walls. apparently it takes 2 sprays to completely get rid of them and they were supposed to come back a week later but they have been nowhere to be seen, so there are still some bed bugs in there. I have plenty of pictures on my camera though, i will have to send that SD card back soon.

oh and hopefully we will be moving apartments within the next couple weeks because this one kind of stinks!! I will let you know when I know more information, as of now I have no more information on it.

Is the BOM  play over?

not yet, it will still be going until the end of this month.

Have you had any success with pamphlets?

President clayton is actually stressing to start using those while teaching now. as we teach the lesson we go through and show them all the pictures and ask about them and talk about them. pretty cool. I really like pamphlets and the information in there is perfect for people. I would say the one to pass out most often should be the restoration because that is our main message that makes us different.

thoughts on conference? Did you have any investigators come?

conference was awesome, my favorite was the german guy who gave the 6 points too, i only remember his first name Jorg. that one was awesome. I really liked Uchdorf's first talk about  reading and praying to gain more faith.

we had a guy named richard come to the first 2 sessions on saturday and 1 guy named Nourr (from Syria) come to the second session

are your daily planners numbered?

nope, maybe i will do that though.

How many times a week do you eat at member's homes?

like 2 or 3, pretty good, no super interesting or outstanding meals this week though.

Any good food stories this week?

nope :( oh we did have turkey on sunday, that tasted really good. it was the 1st counsellor's house, his family is actually American. they are very proper when they eat meals, it is funny. Napkins on the lap and everything, I told them that my family throws things across the dinner table to pass them.

Did you wear your sweater this last week?

no but i wore long sleeves :( and wore a sweater today.

Last week you said you ate a lot of pizza. What kind, like a pizza hut? Do you go and pick it up? or is it from the grocery store?

The main pizza place is one called Albion's right across the street from us. It is actually something called shawarma pizza. for $2.50 we can get a pizza with a heap of shawarma chicken on top, it is very good, i will take a picture of it for you. Albion, the owner (who is muslim) loves missionaries and has been feeding us for 4 years, he is famous throughout the mission for his shawarma pizza. he always gives us good deals on random things at the restaurant.

Playing sports at the ward building today?

yup, sports at our ward building have been kinda lame though so we might go to value village or something also to see if we can get some good cheap stuff.

What time is your p-day over?

6, after that is time to proselyte.

Take a picture of your apartment!!

Will do, i took pics of the bedbug mess but i will take a quick video of the whole thing.

Take other pictures and then send us your SD card. Good idea.

yes, i will try to send it soon, also I will be sending my gps home. in order to get any maps on it I have to download a program on a computer and I cant access a computer where I can do that, so you will have to do that for me and send it back i guess.

alright thats it

I love you all!!!

Received Monday, September 29, 2014

So this will be a smaller email and much later than normal because we had a zone vs zone sports day for preparation day! really cool, the zone leaders asked permission from president clayton and he accepted surprisingly. we played all sorts of sports, basketball, dodgeball, a missionary game called chair soccer. it was very fun. we went to the huge chapel in don Mills. 

yes I did get your recording of beebee's song on there which was pretty amazing. I have a flash drive at my apartment that I keep music on to listen to, next week I will bring it and download the song on to it.

alright the questions:

Did you get my mail from a week ago? It has been so long, I really don't remember what in the world I sent....
I did, i got it that monday night. It was a lot of fantasy football stuff, it was great, thanks mom!

 

Has it gotten cold yet? Are you wearing a sweater or a light coat?

it was pretty cold last week, i actually did have to take out the sweater once, but it heated up a lot again this week. so still either short sleeves or long sleeves with the sleeves rolled up.

 

OH! Ask your current companion (I know he has only been out as long as you) if he has bought his Canadian winter jacket yet? Did he come with one, is he getting it in Canada?

he did not come with one, he still has to get one. there is a thrift store DI type place here that every missionary loves that actually has some pretty nice stuff, so we will go there when it is necessary.

 

You working with any good investigators?

A muslim refugee guy named Samim. he is from Afghanistan, speaks farsee. he is really cool, came to church last sunday. He is 29 years old so we felt like he might be a little old to start out in YSA, but sadly he just will not get up for our ward at 9:30 so we will have to pass him off to the YSA elders because their ward starts at 12:00. We introduced him there on sunday.

 

How do you like your Ward Mission Leader?

He is pretty cool. he is probably in early 30s or late 20s. he is from brazil and served his mission in the Amazon.

 

 

Are there any rules with teaching Muslim people? I thought that I heard that if they convert to another religion they could be fair game to be killed by their family if they are so inclined!!

That is true actually. the main rule is just that if they get baptized we are not allowed to post any baptismal pictures anywhere, because other muslims will try to kill them actually, its pretty crazy and a hard thing.

 

Have you gone again to talk to people as they are going to the BOM play? do you think you have spoken to anyone with a real interest? Do you think you have spoken with any Mormon's that are going?

we did this friday. This one I didnt enjoy quite as much, still entertaining but a little bothersome. some missionaries were just trying to pass out as many BOMs as possible, so there were a ton of people walking around basically making fun of it and it bothered me a bit. I have not found anyone of legitimate interest there yet, but other people have, so not too bad. 1 less active guy actually. he has been someone that missionaries in his area (don valley) have been really trying to get in contact with so it was cool to find him.

 

What sports will you play at the ward building today?

Already said above.

 

HEY! I just realized you are no longer with the companion that happily cooks for you! Are you making more food for yourself, meaning are you actually cooking? Zak says he "cooks" chocolate milk and peanut butter sandwiches. I mean cooking with a pot or the oven.

i cook spaghetti, burgers, cereal, and boiling water to pour in oatmeal. we eat a ton of pizza pretty much, which i'm fine with, i love pizza.

 

How often do you have district meetings?
weekly so long as there is not a zone thing that week, which this last week was actually only our second district meeting this transfer, we have just had a ton of zone things.

Any zone meetings coming up?

nope

 

I NEVER see your face show up on the FB page of your mission. I will keep watching and hoping.

there might be a picture of our zone vs zone preparation day hopefully, that should be cool.

 

How are you sleeping? falling to sleep fast? do you feel tired like you'd like more sleep?

i fall asleep very fast, its nice. I would love more sleep but I dont necessarily need it.

 

Have you eaten (recently) any good Canadian candy? If yes, what?

Sort of. I have referred to Tim Hortons (more popular than mcdonalds) before, and they have recently come out with an oreo doughnut, which is amazingly good. it tastes like a crispy creme doughnut with creme filling.

 

Alright I'm about out of time I will write more next week

I love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, September 22, 2014

that seems all good with BYU and Chase. 

I was only sort of able to see his post. was there a picture with it? that was funny from his coworker though. not sure how you survived that without AC thats pretty crazy it got that hot inside the house. i hope you went to the pool plenty. 

also 1 quick thing, i saw that on the ward programs, the ward had put my direct pickering address on there. it would probably be a little important to either get that changed to my toronto address of the mission office address, otherwise the new missionaries in pickering will probably learn pretty well everything that goes on in our ward thanks to sister hagen sending the programs. 

Thats crazy beebee gets to do her own song during sacrament! i dont really think youre necessarily supposed to play guitar during a sacrament meeting, but i'm glad it's happening anyway.

do you do service? If yes, what day, what do you do?

not really, at least no consistent service time. we have helped someone move as well gone and given blessings to some members in the hospital.

 

where are you in your BOM reading? Tonight I will be around Alma 61 or 62 where Pahoran explains to Moroni why he hasn't sent help to those fighting the Lamanites. It's a good part. This is just after Moroni sent Pahoran a scathing letter.

I am in about 2nd Nephi 4 i think. I recently decided I wanted to spend a little time each morning reading it straight through like a book instead of just by topic, so I make sure to try and read at least 10 minutes a day. I read slow though, during that time i only get through about 2 chapters. I think I want to spend a little time reading through the new testament as well or at least from matthew to acts. I've already read through John earlier in my mission.

and yes I remember that story and I remember you love that one. that one is a good one.

 

What are you studying in your PMG?

I dont normally follow through specifically, just depending on what we are teaching that day I will look at what I feel will be the most useful.

 

Talk about General Conference! Will you watch at your regular ward building?

I think we might go to the stake center building actually (Don Mills, basically toronto also) that building is ridiculously huge, it has 3 floors and 2 sacrament rooms.

If we start watching at 9, then you watch your session at 12 and 3?

hmmm i actually have no idea, I will let you know another time

Do you think you will take notes? Will you use a certain notebook to take notes in?

yes I will. I have 1 notebook I generally will write good scriptures in and another notebook I put notes from random things like zone conference or something in, so I will put my conference notes in that one.

Have you thought about it at all? Will you invite investigators to watch?

have not thought too much about the logistics of what we will actually do. But yes we have invited people and will invite many more. actually there are a couple Muslim people we are teaching who are very interested in a modern day prophet and want to see and listen to him. that should be cool.

 

Are you playing sports at a ward building today?

yes we are!

How long does it take you to do your laundry?

about 30 minutes for the washer and 40 for the dryer but we just drop off our clothes then leave back to our apartment and come back to switch them over to the dryer.

Seems like all is well. I do have a good story from this week though. we were walking down the street downtown and this one guy came up to us and said "Hey Elders!" we talked to him, he seemed like a very normal guy, and he said "hey i was baptized in your church about a year ago, you folks like to call me brother Ore, but thats not my real name, my name is Jesus Christ, I'm the Messiah resurrected." he went on to tell us that hes been resurrected many times, that he had seen his body as he left in the spirit form and that he had seen satan in the flesh and body. Apparently he chose to leave our church because we had most things right but we did not follow him exactly. Now he has his own group of people that pray to him and he heals them. When we got back home we looked him up and his records were in our ward list... so he was baptized thinking he was Jesus. the funny thing is that that was the second "Jesus" that we had met in 2 days. this was just the first one that had been baptized. I asked the bishop about him and he said that when he first came to church after he was baptized that this man went up to him and said "hey also if you ever need any help leading or anything just feel free to let me know, I'm always happy to help my children." Obviously Toronto has been blessed exceedingly to have Jesus come in the form of many many people's bodies.

Also this week the BoM play started! We went down as a whole zone on friday (like 20 missionaries) and it was really fun! it was crazy too! within 2 hours I probably talked to about 200 people! it was crazy.

Alright that's about it

I love you all!

Received Monday, September 15, 2014

Glad to see that no one can find a name better than los osos rabiosos, although that is pretty hard. Also good to see that the bears picked it up and byu continues to do well, and that dad knows how to smack talk well with his co-workers. I think dad is forgetting that zak only likes to listen to taylor swift, not any of this 5 seconds of summer business.

I am saddened and embarrassed to say that I did not remember the Rebecca quote, and i couldn't remember who died of an ignominious death. I definitely did catch the princess bride reference though, so i'm glad i got one thing out of those.

When the BOM play comes, will you go and pass out cards, or real BOM's or something? Remember when Zak worked at the play when it came to his town? He enjoyed working there and talk to those people.

We will try to mostly pass out cards and pamphlets, but will happily give book of mormons to those who seem legitimately interested. last year there was 1 missionary who apparently passed out like 130 book of mormons, that is good but sadly most of those were probably thrown away and the mission was actually in a shortage of book of mormons for a little because there were so many passed out. so this year we are trying to pass out the less expensive, less important items like candy.

Tell us how Gerald is doing!

he was baptized!!! finally, we are very glad, as was he. His main friend in the ward is actually a guy that has fairly recently been reactivated within the last few months, so he got to baptize gerald which made both of them very happy. After he was baptized gerald told us he so so great and clean and couldnt wait to share it with his family back in uganda. so he was baptized here and then he will be confirmed next week in his real ward now. he is an awesome dude.

Did you wear your short sleeve shirts yesterday?

no i did not, but my sleeves were rolled up. normally on sundays because i already have to wear a long sleeved shirt under my suit, i just keep that same shirt on through the day so i dont have to change. it actually got pretty cold here this week but we both kept with the short sleeved shirts. sadly i think fall finally started this week, but i guess that means we are just that much closer to the next summer where it will finally be warm again. i am still going as long as i can with the short sleeves though.

In some parts of the US, there was snow last week....Zak got cold at the BYU game on Thursday night. Just saying.

that is crazy... no me gusta. it is so humid here that there really is no in between either, its either pretty hot or pretty cold.

Had any interesting or different meals?

actually recently no, we have been fed a bunch here but not much different. OH! thought of one. so a couple weeks ago a filipino member had us over and he made steak and rice for us. he told us we will have it the traditional filipino way. so he took out a bunch of big ol' leaf things called banana leaves and spread them across the table, then he plopped all the steak and all the rice on the table and he said basically go wild. so no utensils or anything, just eat it all with your hands. it was really really good, you guys should definitely eat like this from now on, it's awesome. and once you're done there is nothing to clean up, you just throw away the banana leaves.

What did you eat for breakfast?

cereal, always cereal... every once and a while a 2 packets of maple and brown sugar oatmeal.

do you help do any part of the sacrament at church?

nope

When you play sports for p-day, where do the balls come from? Who supplies them?

here, the church has the basketballs, they are actually really nice.

Do you pay cash for your bus rides, or do you get a bus pass?

we get a monthly bus pass every start of the month, i actually accidentally washed mine today and it got just a tiny bit warped, but it still works when i slide it so all is well.

Do people every talk or comment on YOUR accent?

apparently californians put more of an emphasis on the first syllable than most people. Every once and a while they wonder why i say about a little weird.

When you meet people, do they ask where you are from? What EXACTLY do you say? Arcadia? Pasadena? Los Angeles?

normally i just say california and that is good enough, but when they ask for more detail i just say arcadia and that it is by LA. when i told 1 guy that today  he asked if i had met a lot of famous people.

Have you gotten close enough to see Lake Ontario?

In pickering i saw it every day, i lived right next to it. Here i have gone down to see it once, our area goes all the way down there (it is south of toronto) but there arent too many houses or people all the way down there so we arent there too often.

 whoops accidently just hit send... that was actually pretty much the end of my email though.

I love you!

Quinn

Received Monday, September 8, 2014

Awesome for BYU! not so much for the bears sadly. Also that mud run sounds pretty awesome, i guess it would be pretty hard to get pictures of that though with the mud and all, did one of your friends have a gopro type device? that weather temperature seems burning hot! that is great. 

I intend to continue wearing short sleeves for as long as possible, the humidity still makes it feel like it's a lot hotter anyway.

Questions:

Is Bastille an individual or a group?

I strongly believe that bastille was once an individual when he first started but now is a band and has been a band for as long as they have been famous. dont remember the 1 guy's name though, hes british.

 

Did you get you get your b-day package? have you opened,  or used the GPS? I put the instructions to the GPS in the box somewhere. Make sure you find them. There was also a car power cord that you plug into your car and the GPS. AND there is a mount for your car and the GPS. Hope you figured all that out. Did you find the camera SD card? It was tiny! What about your contacts, do they look fine? I can't even remember what else was in that box!

All was great! i got it on friday at zone training (which president now wants to be called zone council). Yes I have opened the GPS and tried to use it. Apparently I have to update the maps though because it doesnt know where canada is quite yet. i will do that today. and i saw all that other gps stuff in there, i havnt tried to do much with that yet because i dont have a car right now but it will be very useful in the future. thank you! yes i saw the SD card, i will try to take some good pictures and videos on my old sd card and send it out to you as soon as its full. saw the contacts, that should be great, according to what i have in boxes I have about 2 and a half years worth if i through away the contacts i'm wearing every week, which i tend to wear them significantly longer than that. Also in the box was the short sleeved shirt, which i am currently wearing, a reese's bar which has been eaten, a starburst packet which is half eaten, and 3 ties which are awesome. there is the bright yellow stripe one which was sweet, the stripe green one which was cool too, and my favorite one, the orange polka-dot with fish on it which was awesome. not super sure the orange one is totally approved but i am going to wear it as long as someone doesnt tell me not to. I am currently wearing the green one and have already worn the other 2.

 

So, you must have had zone conference! Tell about that? How far away did you have to drive, or did you take a bus to get there?

this was zone training (council) so it was just our zone there. we met in the chapel that is an 8 minute walk from our apartment. something interesting was that president and sister clayton showed up and the 2 assistants. i think they came to be a part about the talk about the Book of Mormon play coming to town (oh yea that is coming i think friday in 2 weeks). that chapel is a super old chapel but its pretty cool looking, it is at 851 ossington.

 

Do you have/know your address today? Nana wants to send you a letter! (I do too!)

yes!

357 Rusholme Road #105

Toronto, ON

M6H 2Z4

 

Talk about doing your laundry!! I think $7 is a lot each week to do laundry! Is that a shared cost with your companion? Zak said that he always did his laundry with his companion.

thats pretty cheap here. you have to remember that everything is super expensive in canada. that is 7 dollars per person, 2 small washer loads and 1 dryer load. we would do it together except our loads were pretty full most of the time.

 

Do you live in an apartment? Are you many flights up? Is there an elevator? Do you have to walk up?

apartment on the first floor, pretty lucky. there is an elevator.

 

Are you still grocery shopping at Walmart?

yes

Do you walk to the grocery store? 

yes, thats about 8 minutes also.

Do you then just carry those grocery bags back home?

sort of. we have a weird cart thing that we can fit most of our groceries in that we can roll home, then we just carry the rest. there normally alrent too many groceries anyway.

Makes the walk from the car to the kitchen not so bad, I suppose! Do they have regular plastic bags for your groceries there? Or do you have to buy and use special easy environmental bags? You know, that is what you have to do when you shop in Pasadena. NO plastic or paper bags. You can buy them for 10 cents each if you like.

i just found out today that it is about 3 cents per plastic bag! they say nothing about it, it just gets charged. so i guess there is, i never see anyone do any environmental bags though.

 

did you have your baptism on Sunday?

nope :( poor gerald is just in a weird situation and has not been dealt with well. he lives about an hour away by bus now since he moved. technically he is in another ward boundary but hes told us he wants to be baptized here. something new that has changed since zak got back is that we now teach the 5th lesson (laws and ordinances) before baptism instead of after (which was how it was before). basically all gerald needs is that lesson and an interview and he can be baptized and we were supposed to do that on friday and saturday but he had to bomb both,  random rescheduling for work. he did come to our ward on sunday and he bore his testimony! he said that he knows this is the true church and cant wait to be baptized to gain even more blessings than hes already received since first being taught. sadly after sacrament meeting  he kept having to meet up with different ward members (bishop, job finder person, etc.) and by the time he got done with that we couldnt find him to set up an appointment to finally get it done! very sad, he needs to be baptized asap. we will call him today and figure some things out with him (how he needs to meet with us before he can get baptized already, whether it's worth it for him to be baptized in this ward, we have been trying to pass him off but it hasnt been handled well). hes an awesome dude, i feel bad for him, he'll be baptized eventually. really hoping for this sunday whether its in our ward or the one he lives at.

 

so you played sports with different elders last week! How did that go? What did you play? What do you think you will do this week for P-day?

kinda lame, it was raining that day so people didnt really feel like coming (no one in the zone has a car besides the zone leaders) so it was us and 2 other companionships. played a little basketball.

 

How many sisters in your zone? do they ever come to your p-day sports playing?

8 i think.

 

I just google mapped the Church in Toronto - 2 locations - Ossington or McCowen. Which one do you go to? The Ossington Location has a BIG Russian Catholic Church right by it. Very interesting.

yes ossington, we walk by that church all the time. when we try to describe where our church is people think it's the catholic one a lot, its kind of funny. the ossington one actually looks kind of like a catholic one too, there are stain glass windows and stuff everywhere, its interesting. it is super old too apparently 3 different men who eventually became prophets spoke from that pulpit.

Got a little bad news, last thursday we found out we have bed bugs! they have obviously been there a while, i'm guessing the last elders just didnt say anything or something, i dont know. so we had to work like crazy to get rid of them. we were told to get this bed bug powder and spray it all over the bed. we thought it was only on 1 bed because elder burton was the only one who got bit for a while and my bed looked totally clean but just yesterday i found some bites on myself! very sad. our apartment is being sprayed some time this week and at the same time we will basically have to wash all of our clothes and probably end up getting a new bed for myself and elder burton.

on a better, cooler note something awesome happened yesterday. we were visiting a former investigator and knocked on the door. some other guy answered the door and he told us this was a home brought together by several churches for refugees! as we were trying to talk to and see if this guy was interested another guy came up behind him and started listening. the first guy had to leave but then the other guy started asking some questions and was legitimately interested in what we were saying, as we were talking another guy came out and started listening, then more and more people. all of them were listening and asking questions with interest. eventually we were basically standing on the porch teaching the restoration to about 10 different people, we felt kind of like alma and amulek teaching the crowds, it was cool. a couple of the people who stayed through the whole time told us they were very interested and really wanted us to come back so they could hear more. so that was very cool.

oh and on saturday we met the guy with the internet's largest database on John 8:1-11 (the woman caught in adultery) and he asked for us to come back. Super knowledgeable about the bible apparently had read it about 40 times. cool guy.

Alright thats it!

I love you!

Quinn

Received Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Thanks for the update dad!

 you know if you really want to you can just use the playlist i have on my ipod, i already have all of the best music on the anyway. 

Why were so many BYU players on suspension!? thats weird, glad they won though and taysom looked good. 

glad mom got the opportunity to quote taylor swift, it always adds a good bonus to any response if you can explain within the lyrics of a song. 

excellent reading of the BOM, that is a lot of reading!

who are some of beebee's teachers? maybe i know them. 

that was a great joke too... i cant think of a good antenna pun to add to it darn.

Did you get your b-day box? Have you heard anything about it?

nope, hopefully, likely will get it this friday at zone training. i have heard nothing about it.

Transfers! Tell how it went,

went well. we had to get up at 5 in the morning to drive to Brampton stake center, then got in the transfer van a while later to get to the toronto stake center. that is where i met up with elder burton, then at about 2:00 we went off in to the city by bus and subway.

how is your new apartment,

very small, not too good, but thats ok because we arent really there too much anyway.

WHAT is your address

embarrassingly i'm not sure and i forgot my proof of address paper at home (we are at the library right now) but we will be getting on computers again later today probably so i will send it.

how is your companion?

elder burton is an awesome guy. he came out with me, so it's fun both being pretty new.

have you ridden the bus yet? how did you like it?

we ride the bus all over, i like it, its great.

how was your new ward?

interesting, tons of less actives, a bunch starting to come back to church. they also like to call a lot of people brother or sister and then their first name like brother alex or something like that, its a little annoying but whatever. they are happy and very willing to do all they can to help missionary work within their ward though.

Have you seen anything interesting?

the (phonetically spelled) See-in tower, that is pretty cool, its right in our area so we see it all the time. and we've walked through downtown toronto a lot.

where did you email?

library, and probably the ward family history center later.

do you have a washer and dryer in your apartment?

no :( it's about 7 dollars to do laundry though, so for having to pay it's not too bad.

did the last missionaries leave anyone that wants to hear the gospel?

actually surprisingly they did. there is 1 guy who is ready for baptism named gerald, super awesome guy. he actually just moved out of the area but the zone leaders told us to just baptize him this sunday at our ward, so that is what we will do. also there is a lady named janice who they taught once who seems pretty awesome. her brother in St. Lucia (the Caribbean) was a convert and is going on a mission soon, he referred her to the missionaries here. 

what are you doing for pday today??

Sports again! i am always happy with that.

alright thats it,

I love you all!

Quinn